Indefatigable CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale surfaced this big, fat whopper from last night’s racist hate rally. Warning: the CNN clip contains brief video of Trump speaking at the hate rally, so if you watch it, you’ll see the bloated, sweaty orange shitgibbon chopping the air with his hand as he lies about the nonexistent Republican healthcare plan for about 15 seconds:
On Republicans, Democrats and pre-existing conditions, Trump is claiming that up is down — just spouting absolute nonsense. My fact check on @donlemon: pic.twitter.com/29txUhphAU
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 18, 2019
Hasty transcript of Trump’s quote for those unwilling to subject themselves to the image:
“Patients with preexisting conditions are protected by Republicans much more so than protected by Democrats, who will never be able to pull it off.”
As Dale points out, Democrats already “pulled it off” with the ACA, which is the only reason preexisting conditions aren’t a thing now, and if the Trump administration gets its way, the ACA will be struck down entirely by the courts, which will not only cause millions to lose access to coverage via the exchanges but also leave every single American with private insurance to the tender mercies of the insurance companies on a whole host of provisions, including preexisting conditions.
A few months ago, Trump started making noises about GOP healthcare reform policies, which Republican electeds played down. That’s because even if Trump is dumb enough to believe his own lies about the nonexistent GOP healthcare plan (debatable), people like Mitch McConnell know releasing a plan would necessitate defending said plan in upcoming elections. But are they going to go into the 2020 election with absolutely nothing? Possibly!
Trump appointed a couple of GOP senators to look into the issue, naming Medicare fraudster Rick Scott as “point man.” But while Scott is definitely a crook, he’s not stupid, so he immediately threw that hot potato right back at the White House on one of the Sunday shows, saying “I look forward to, you know, to seeing what the president’s going to put out.” So did it fall through the cracks? Maybe Jared is working on it?
Anyhoo, regardless of what you think of the various Democratic Party primary candidates’ approaches to healthcare, at least they have policies to debate. The same is true of many other issues, like the phantom wall that Trump lied about last night too. It looks like all Trump will bring to the general election is more lies. Am I wrong in thinking it’ll be harder to pull off a all-lie-based campaign strategy as an incumbent? Maybe, but I ‘m going to choose optimism on this point.
Open thread!
rikyrah
If I ever meet Mr. Dale, I’m going to buy him dinner.
rikyrah
Nearly 1 out of 2 people in this country have a pre-existing condition.
150 million people.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: the other 200 million just don’t know it yet.
Another Scott
Dale is great, but this is just another example. We know his MO:
“People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,”
He’s running a cult of personality.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Sorry if that created an earworm! ;-)”)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Yes and no. Most of his base, as Another Scott pointed out, is in a cult of personality. However, some undoubtedly won’t buy his bullshit any longer. And he only won by a slim margin last time around. So there’s definitely reason to hope. We just have to stay focused and mobilize our voters
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: Lies and hate keep the base fired up, obviously. But I guess what I’m asking is if shameless lying about concrete policy questions is sustainable in a general election campaign for an incumbent. Maybe — I never thought the novelty of shameless lying would paralyze people to the extent it did in 2016, but you can’t run an “insurgent” campaign when you’re already the fucking president, can you? It seems like the complete lack of achievements besides coasting on the economy and cutting taxes for rich people could be a liability. I mean, he’ll have been in office for a few years at that point. Where’s this great, cheap healthcare plan he promised, etc.?
ChrisS
Infrastructure week is just around the corner!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Betty Cracker:
I think some of his voters actually bought that he was to the left of Clinton. I bet they won’t be swayed so easily this time around. They’ve gotten a chance to see him in action now and I think his record will be a liability among them as well as the majority of the electorate that despises him
satby
@Betty Cracker: his cultists absolutely believe he has huge accomplishments, because the right-wing media tells them so. So for the 27%+, he’s the bestest preznit evah.
Edited to add: in the last election more people didn’t vote at all, so 27%+- might end up as a plurality of the rest if us get depressed, and can’t turn out the voters.
The media will not be a help.
TS (the original)
Bail denied for Epstein
germy
@TS (the original): Good
Patricia Kayden
I love what Dale is doing but every Democratic politician should be calling Trump a liar on a regular basis. It’s amazing how he can get away with making bald faced lies. And the lies will only become more outrageous as it dawns on Trump that the Russians can’t help him steal another election in 2020.
germy
James E Powell
@satby:
I believe that number is closer to 40%. At the very least, as we go into the 2020 cycle, it would be prudent to assume that’s his floor.
I expect his support will increase toward 45% as it becomes obvious to white Americans that it’s either Trump or a Democrat. Republican voters hate us more than they love Trump. For most of them, the only reason they love Trump is that he hates us as much as they do.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Trump’s voters are the 1/3 of the country that’s authoritarian white supremacists, plus conservatives who are along for the ride because they’re getting most of what they want. That won’t change. But as we saw in 2016 that’s far short of a majority.
Betty Cracker
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I’ve been depressed lately because a relative who was Trump-curious but allegedly did not vote for him in 2016 has lately come out as a full-blown Trumper. Misogyny was the gateway drug for this person’s eventual slide into white supremacy. I think that is a lot more common than generally acknowledged. I find it depressing, but then again, he is the only of my many rural “conservative” relatives who is more enthusiastic about Trump now than he was in 2016. So I guess that’s something.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: It’s actually my birthday and I cancelled lunch with some friends, because last time I saw her she brought up Rush Limbaugh. I just can’t
I mowed instead.
Gin & Tonic
@TS (the original): That weird foreign passport was from Austria?!
rikyrah
EPSTEIN DENIED BAIL!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mai Naem mobile
Seeing all the mistruths about the ACA that made it mainstream I don’t have a doubt the Republicans will fool a lot of people. Way too many people in this country are easily scammed. That’s the reason we still have those computer nigerian prince scams and the IRS scams. A few weeks after rhe election I was at a pizza place that I hadn’t been to in years. It had changed owners. I was at the tail end of lunch hour and was the lone customer. Without any prompting from me he started talking about how he was worried about the direction of this country. He is an immigrant from Albania and he’s been here since the 80s and said he had never felt like this before in this country. It was a depressing conversation.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
And using the word LIAR….every damn day.
opiejeanne
@germy: Won’t most people take that deflection as a “yes”?
Mandalay
Somewhat OT, but CNN mediocrities Bash and Tapper have written an article this morning titled ‘Squad’ drama frustrating some House Democrats.
The article argues that “far-left progressives have outsized influence in their caucus” based solely on anonymous sources:
This is the same Jake Tapper who constantly rails against the president for citing unnamed sources.
If no Democrat is willing to go on the record about progressives having “outsized influence” then there is no story. Tapper and Bash are just stenographers for gossip and private grumbling. In other words: fake news.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker:
Normally, it would be toxic of course. But he obviously thinks so. It’s his entire MO.
What else would he run on?
“I got this great deal with Kim in the DPRK!!11” Er, well, not really.
“I got those free-loading Europeans to pay me NATO!!11″ Er, well, not really.
“I got those cheating Mexicans and Hosers to pay up and got rid of that horrible NAFTA!!11” Er, well, not really.
Etc.
He’s not going to change his spots, and I remain convinced that he’s brain damaged, so I’m expecting him to continue to get worse.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
japa21
@opiejeanne: In a ratioal world, yes. In this current timeline, probably not. And he’ll just say he didn’t hear the question.
Baud
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I think I have more respect for the deplorables.
JustRuss
“I don’t know Chuck. Opinions differ!” Expect to hear a lot of that. Our media isn’t going to turn into a fact-checking machine, they’ll do their usual “The truth must be somewhere in the middle!” BS. It’s all they know how to do.
japa21
@opiejeanne: In a rational world, yes. In this current timeline, probably not. And he’ll just say he didn’t hear the question.
Anonymous At Work
@Another Scott: “I’ve got a super-secret plan for combating ISIS!” only for healthcare. And like any cheap and obvious click bait site, “You’ll have to elect me to find out what’s in it.” with lots of extravagant promises.
Mandalay
@Another Scott: I’d add to your list Trump’s most absurd lie of all: “For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA…”
PAM Dirac
@Another Scott:
There’s been a lot of speculation about what kind of evidence of wrongdoing would a least give the deniers pause, but what about evidence of dementia? How far gone does he have to be before the denials become absurd?
FelonyGovt
I like to hope that every day, as he goes lower and lower, a few of his supporters peel off and decide he’s gone too far.
Probably giving them too much credit, but we all need to find hope somewhere…
Redshift
@Betty Cracker:
Also the constant lying about things being horrible before he took office to make it look like he’s accomplished something seems like a sign of weakness. He tried this in 2018 on healthcare, on immigration, on the economy, and it didn’t work. Yes, the cult is unreachable, but other people he needs to attract know everything wasn’t a disaster before 2016.
SFAW
@rikyrah:
Absolutely. Also, the next Dem President should award him the Medal of Freedom (or something similar).
Chyron HR
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
They’ll believe it when when Bernie tells them to (again).
SFAW
@PAM Dirac:
The only thing(s) that would do it would be his admitting that Dems actually have better ideas for America, or that POC are just as good as white ‘Muricans. Shirt of that: I don’t believe anything would change with the RWMFs
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
Seconded. They should also find some way of working in laughing at the Racist-in-Chief: “Did you see Trump’s latest lie, about how pre-existing conditions weren’t covered by Obamacare? Is he lying, stupid, or both? EVERYONE knows they’re covered — although Trump is trying to take that coverage away.”
and so forth
Mandalay
@Redshift:
Trump’s approval rating has barely budged since his weekend tweets, so the fact that his approval rating went up by about 5% among Republicans after the tweets is actually bad for him. While I’m always wary about limited poll samples over short periods, that implies that his approval has also gone down about 5% among non-Republicans – the very people he “needs to attract”.
japa21
@Mandalay: Since Republicans are around 27% (yes, that number again) it really means his approval has only gone down a little over 1% among non-GOP. (I refuse to do the actual math. )
Brachiator
How to tell when Trump is lying (other than “his lips are moving”)
From CNN contributor Daniel Dale
cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/sir-trump-telltale-word-false/index.html
END
jonas
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s absolutely true. But, distributed in the right way, as we saw in 2016, that minority can still yield a majority in the electoral college and the EC is now a rubber stamp, not a firewall against a dangerous demagogue gaining power, like the Founding Fathers intended it to be. Every Dem candidate needs to have a poster in their campaign offices with the words Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida taped to it in bold letters. That’s all that matters.
Betty Cracker
@Redshift: That’s a good point too. The campaign accidentally underscores that point since the original slogan was Make American Great Again, and now it’s Keep America Great. We totally sucked four years ago and now we don’t? You’d have to be huffing MAGA farts for six solid years to buy that garbage.
PS: I think I worded this post poorly or something since most of the responses focus on what Trump or his base will do, which isn’t the question.
Mandalay
@japa21:
You are conflating/confusing “actual Republican voters” with “adults” and “Republicans”. You don’t specify your source for “27%”, but presumably it relates to the number of voting Republicans as a percentage of the total population at the last election. Nothing I linked to used that criterion.
James E Powell
@FelonyGovt:
Given the nature of his supporters and their reasons for supporting him, it is more likely that if there is a decline, it will be a collapse rather than a peeling off of a few points. And it will only happen if they become convinced that he is going to lose. This is what was about to happen to him in October 2016 until Comey saved the Trump campaign.
Betty Cracker
@jonas: Seems like a lot of folks are writing Florida off, I guess because the blue wave missed us in 2018? We’ll see what the campaigns do. Trump’s overall approval rating here is underwater, but not by much.
Another Scott
@jonas: LOLGOP at Eclectablog: How Donnie can win with 43% of the popular vote:
I’m not sure I agree with the hair-on-fire-impeach-now aspects of it, but it’s something to think about.
As Nancy says, “Diversity is our strength, unity is our power.” We need to fight hard for what we want, but we need to come together as Democrats to win in November. Continuing to fight after the convention in the name of purity would spell disaster.
Cheers,
Scott.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@jonas:
Yes, but knocking on wood, what are the odds of that happening again? 2020 will not be like 2016 again. Many factors will be different. When his margins are so close, especially
Skepticat
@Patricia Kayden:
I agree completely with the first part, but is there any indication at all that the bots, trolls, and the like won’t be in play this time too? As far as I can tell, the Rethuglicans have stopped any and all attempts to secure the integrity of the election process.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This is your brain
This is your brain on opiods.
Brachiator
Trump and the GOP are vulnerable here, very vulnerable. They have been pushing this lie for a while. They must think it important that voters believe them on this.
But they can easily be nailed on this.
Butch
@Mandalay: Don’t have a link handy (story is at Slate) but apparently Tapper is getting some pretty considerable heat for this obvious bias in the article and is refusing comment.
japa21
@Mandalay: According to polling done the last few years, only 24-26% of adults self-identify as Republicans, the people who have displayed a 5% increase in approval for Trump. Since roughly 75% do not identify as Republicans if 5% more disapproved of Trump, then his ratings would have dropped not stayed the same. That is all I am saying.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Mandalay: I believe the same poll that showed him up 5% with R’s showed him down 10% with Independents.
It’s the tradeoff he’s making – and the results of this strategy should be similar to 2018, if not more of a blowout for D’s.
jl
I think that if Trump faces a good campaigner who is a good clear forceful explainer, with good plans, during the general, it will be near impossible for him to do well as an incumbent who goes with an all lies all the time approach. It certainly won’t work with Warren or Harris. Whether Sanders or Biden are up to the task is an open question in my mind.
Sanders might sound too much like a tape loop from 2016 and those who are not committed will tune him out. And Biden needs to show he has a plan other than promises of an Obama nostalgia administration. A hopeful sign for Biden is that he is finally producing some interesting policy proposals. From what I’ve read his proposal to improve ACA with a robust public option that can reduce expenditures is good.
I think signs are that the voters have decided for now that Biden, Harris, Sanders and Warren are the serious candidates, and I’m working on assumption it will be one of them, unless the others have some surprise in store in terms of policy proposals or debate performance.
jonas
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Agreed that a lot of (dark) stars aligned in 2016 to make Trump’s election possible that aren’t likely to do so again, particularly something dramatic like Comey’s letter that incontrovertibly kneecapped Hillary in the final week. But countering that 40-45% of deplorables that will crawl over broken glass to reelect him is going to require nominating a candidate who can both energize the Dem base *and* win back those former Obama voters and other moderates in swing states who pulled the lever for Trump. As much as I personally like several of them, I’m having a tough time seeing which of the current 250 people running so far could successfully square that circle. Harris is my guess, but we’ll see.
jl
@jonas: A good sign is that Trumpsters and GOP are planning to double down on the failed hate and scare campaign they used in 2018 and that failed miserably with everyone except the basest of their base. Not sure ‘planning’ is the right word. More like: Trump is gonna follow his instincts, gonna do what he is gonna do and gets cheers from his hard core base, and the Trumpster flunkies and the GOP will have to go along.
So, they will yell ‘commie death camps’ at every single Democratic candidate from Sanders to Biden, they will use murdering Hispanics, scary dark people, Muslims are all traitors, immigration scares and general xenophobia, and lies about nonexistent accomplishments, crises, and self-created crises custom tailored by Trumpster to scare people. Except they think the secret to success is to do it louder and more baldly, and do nothing else.
That failed miserably in 2018, and I think will fail even more in 2020. Especially when a focus will be on Trump’s performance. Trump’s only real accomplishment is the stupid rich person’s tax cut that is failing miserably in terms of GOP promises of increases real incomes for workers, and increases US prosperity. Evidence is coming in that it is actually making the country poorer, as analyzed by economists like Dean Baker, Paul Krugman, etc. And probably, some economic slowdown coming right before the election, though odds of an actual recession are not that high yet.
Edit: though when Trump yells “Commie Mao-Stalin-Biden’s gonna take your hamberders!!!!” that will be fun.
NY Robbin
@Brachiator:
“Believe me!” is also a tell. Plus it being a day ending in “y”.
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
satby
@JPL: Happy Birthday! You made the choice that probably was best!
Mandalay
@Butch: Found it. Thanks. I hope they go after Bash as well.
Searcher
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I don’t think I believe that, per se, but I do think that some people thought/hoped Trump would be a “white socialist”, who would bring THEM healthcare, welfare and other programs while denying them to non-whites.
They’ll be angry if their healthcare goes away, and about grain prices being in the basement, but not so angry as if Trump let brown people into the country or made it easy for any of THOSE PEOPLE to benefit from healthcare or earn a living wage.
There is just a huge number of voters who want to tax the rich and use the money to oppress minorities; if there’s ever a governing coalition for that, we’re fucked.
jl
@Searcher:
” There is just a huge number of voters who want to tax the rich and use the money to oppress minorities; if there’s ever a governing coalition for that, we’re fucked. ”
As Paul Krugman has pointed out, that is the combo of hate politics and economic benefits for the majority in-group that has worked for right wing populists around the world. It was a mainstay of apartheid South African policy. Erdogan pulled it off expertly early in his rule in Turkey, though it has run into trouble lately. Orban is trying to that in Hungary but with less success. Not sure it is sustainable policy, since even if some of the economic policies can be defended on sound economic reasons. One big problem is that ‘sound economic reasons’ are not the basis of the policies, rather the real reasons are to deliver economic bennies to the in-group by any means necessary, so eventually the policies go off the rails and into the ditch. And second, the inevitable corruption and crony bureaucracy and crony capitalism that goes with authoritarian rule takes over. But by then authoritarian rule is cemented in it is a very arduous, traumatic and dangerous task to dislodge it.
Trump hasn’t followed the usual right wing populist formula in that he has betrayed all of his populist economic policies that attracted up to a half (by HRC’s estimate) of his voters in 2016.
Rob in CT
@Searcher:
I was scared of this back in 2016. Because that would probably work.
Instead, he has pursued a plutocratic agenda and just lied constantly about it. That works on far, far too many people, but it’s not enough for majority support.
patrick II
@Mandalay:
I resent the representation of the squad as “the far left”. And I hate the whole socialist or capitalist binary choice democrats are forced into by Republicans and thoughtless media, which put in those terms is certainly liberal, but not so far left we haven’t made that case by our most successful president. We need a mixture of both for a successful economy, and the measure of that success is if everyday people are doing well, not big bonuses for CEO’s.
The specifics of most of what the squad wants is what FDR wanted eighty years ago, with more racial equality and environmental awareness. I wish they would just say something like “The New Fair Deal” tie it to Roosevelt’s which would make it tougher for timid Dems to back away from and media to villainize. Warren’s positions are very similar to AOC, but she calls it Capitalism with (Fair) Rules. The New Green Deal and The New Fair Deal (although they certainly overlap), Capitalism with Rules, all sound pretty good to me
jl
@patrick II: I agree. Trump, Trumpsters and GOP are already calling Biden a commie. I guess soon they’ll try out calling him Joe Stalin Biden.
They sent out mass emailings this week that used the identical ‘deranged socialist’ language for every Democrat, every single one, regardless of their ideological stance.
We are going to be called dangerous socialists and commies no matter what. So, there is no reason at all to censor ourselves or fear honest and robust intra-party debate.
And I don’t think we have anything to fear from ‘the squad’ making their case to the public. I think they did a great job earlier this week.
Finally, these unsourced Democratic quotes probably come from scared centrists pols and staffers who really haven’t shown themselves to be good at doing much of anything but cowering and pissing themselves like a nervous tiny lapdog. They have a record of electoral defeat that rivals that of what the progressives are accused of.
Problem is that we, as Democratic voters, can’t do much about it. If the quotes were sourced, we could at least let the Dem pols gossiping to Tapper know that we aint sending them any money because they are full of BS.
So, only effective thing we can do is robustly support the Dem candidates we think are best. For pres, right now, I am going with Warren, and if she doesn’t make it, then maybe Harris.
Raoul
Health Care has to be a club with which we beat the GOP resoundingly about the head.
They have nothing. Maybe the knuckle dragging 27% don’t know it, but everyone else can see: Republicans are worse than useless on insurance and medicine.
jonas
@jl: Trump hasn’t followed the usual right wing populist formula in that he has betrayed all of his populist economic policies that attracted up to a half (by HRC’s estimate) of his voters in 2016.
IIRC, Matt Yglesias was pointing this out the other day: Trump ran on a populist economic platform, but has governed as staunch conservative (save for giving a shit about the deficit, which Republicans never actually did in good faith). The thing is, I can’t really see that this has cost him anywhere close to half his support. His support was never really built around agreeing with a set of policy proposals anyway (other than “locking her up” I suppose). It’s a personality cult built around slavish admiration for a bully who beats down women, minorities and pwns the libs. Look at the midwestern farmers whose businesses Trump single-handedly ruined this year. Didn’t faze ’em for a second. They’re still out there looking at their bankrupt fields in their MAGA hats and thinking, well, I may be ruined, but at least some poor Honduran kid in a cage has it worse.
J R in WV
I still think his open fascist racist rallies will continue to repel decent people. And agitate good folks of all stripes. I can’t stand to believe for the next 18 months that America is suddenly a fascist state.
So I’ll go on being optimistic and working hard to produce votes. Calling into PA and Ohio for Kamala or Senator Professor Warren, I hope.
jl
@jonas: I said ‘up to half’. The 2016 electoral college results was decided by less than 100,000 votes in 3 states, or less than 200,000 votes in FL, if you think that state is still relevant. We need to win over far less than half to smash the Trumpsters.
boatboy_srq
@Major Major Major Major: Pre-existing conditions are not a medical diagnosis. They are an accounting feature insurers use to deny coverage. Period.